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for anyone braying the old "there isn't enough money" line you do know what negotiation is, right? when you first start from a strong position, so that the inevitable compromise is more favorable to your overall goal?

besides, we continually DO find money in our collective couch to bail out rich fuckers like the financial industry, the auto industry, the defense industry (they don't even need a bailout just an endless blank check). yes we never wonder where the money for all of those things are coming from, it just magically appears from the sky, like mana.

this is the exact kind of "fighting back" we need. not snarky Twitter comments, not screaming at people outside a restaurant, but an actual bold statement of policy.

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Yeah, that won't cause capital flight at all. Why not tackle something tough like finding a way to reallocate military spending without half of congress and the senate jumping down your throat rather than just playing to the peanut gallery?

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for anyone braying the old "there isn't enough money" line you do know what negotiation is, right? when you first start from a strong position, so that the inevitable compromise is more favorable to your overall goal?

besides, we continually DO find money in our collective couch to bail out rich fuckers like the financial industry, the auto industry, the defense industry (they don't even need a bailout just an endless blank check). yes we never wonder where the money for all of those things are coming from, it just magically appears from the sky, like mana.

this is the exact kind of "fighting back" we need. not snarky Twitter comments, not screaming at people outside a restaurant, but an actual bold statement of policy.

Member

Did you watch the clip @12Goblins posted? Donald Trump was saying something quite similar back in '99. Attack her ideas because they come from her and you legitimize them once someone's met the qualifiers that you're laid out. This is why gatekeeping and character assassinations never work.

Anime waifu panty shots are basically the same thing as paintings of the french baroque masters, if you think about it.

for anyone braying the old "there isn't enough money" line you do know what negotiation is, right? when you first start from a strong position, so that the inevitable compromise is more favorable to your overall goal?

besides, we continually DO find money in our collective couch to bail out rich fuckers like the financial industry, the auto industry, the defense industry (they don't even need a bailout just an endless blank check). yes we never wonder where the money for all of those things are coming from, it just magically appears from the sky, like mana.

this is the exact kind of "fighting back" we need. not snarky Twitter comments, not screaming at people outside a restaurant, but an actual bold statement of policy.

I have no problem taxing the rich. but a 70% income bracket on ultra high incomes wouldn't raise squat in revenue and would just get ultra high earners to shelter their income further.

Go after net wealth like Trump proposed in that video @12Goblins posted, which is a totally different beast. I'd also love to slam corporations with taxes or fines for hoarding cash reserves and doing stock buybacks and other short sighted bullshit to please wall street over investing in the economy and the community. I just don't know of a way to do it without causing an economic backlash.

Did you watch the clip @12Goblins posted? Donald Trump was saying something quite similar back in '99. Attack her ideas because they come from her and you legitimize them once someone's met the qualifiers that you're laid out. This is why gatekeeping and character assassinations never work.

Member

The problem here is NOT a 70% tax rate. It’s how efficiently the money will be spend.

Taxes come from somewhere, they have opportunity cost. Which means that money taken by force and spent by the government could have been lended in the private sector to cheapen ongoing business activity by lowering borrowing rates, or to start new businesses.

Every dollar you pull from rich guys funding VC projects is a dollar that doesn’t exist to help create the next google, Netflix, microsoft, etc.

Ask yourself how many big tech companies exist in Europe, and understand that is a direct result of tax policy.

Member

why should policy need to be shaped solely on the needs of the ultra high earners? they are far less than 70% the population. the super rich are going to shelter their income, there is nothing we can do to stop that. this is a lot of what they spend their time doing! playing wack-a-mole is a waste of time.

to me it's about shifting the overton window. currently in the US even Democrats see all social spending as "entitlements" that must be earned. it is a shitty 20th century narrative that needs to die.

let's at least fight back against the idea that "entitlement spending" is something we need to earn. let's give credit to the far greater number of middle or lower class citizens of this nation, who have personally worked hard for their shit, sacrificed their lives for it, and are owed their fair share from the piece of cake that the rich are hogging. why are we even concerned for the rich? they are in no danger of having their necessities taken away, unlike the poor. this is a poor alignment of priorities imo.

Anime waifu panty shots are basically the same thing as paintings of the french baroque masters, if you think about it.

why should policy need to be shaped solely on the needs of the ultra high earners? they are far less than 70% the population. the super rich are going to shelter their income, there is nothing we can do to stop that. this is a lot of what they spend their time doing! playing wack-a-mole is a waste of time.

to me it's about shifting the overton window. currently in the US even Democrats see all social spending as "entitlements" that must be earned. it is a shitty 20th century narrative that needs to die.

let's at least fight back against the idea that "entitlement spending" is something we need to earn. let's give credit to the far greater number of middle or lower class citizens of this nation, who have personally worked hard for their shit, sacrificed their lives for it, and are owed their fair share from the piece of cake that the rich are hogging. why are we even concerned for the rich? they are in no danger of having their necessities taken away, unlike the poor. this is a poor alignment of priorities imo.

Like I said - there are so few people making over 10 million dollars a year that it wouldn't raise any meaningful funding to cover entitlement spending. There are only about 2000 households in the US with over 10 million dollars a year in income.

I'm all for making things better for the middle class and lower classes. Wages have not kept up with cost of living, productivity and market gains for one, yet corporations are fat with cash reserves, effectively choking the economic engine. People need to make money to spend it, and capital doesn't mean shit when it is imaginary money in the stock market or sitting in a vault somewhere. Corporations also have to spend their money on investments into growth, not stashing it in their mattresses waiting for a rainy day that they create for themselves. Sending jobs overseas to save more money for stuffing their mattresses should be punished with massive tariffs/taxes to protect our workers. This is the same with the ultra wealthy - them hording assets is very damaging to the long term health of the economy. Spending and investment should be encouraged, not hording.

I’ve addressed her idea and called her an idiot, because her idea is bad for reasons I have previously stated and she has a track record of saying dumb things.

I mean I want to like the woman, but she is not the progressive icon we need, she is going to be very damaging to the brand down the line if someone doesn’t sit her down and tell her to do a little more research and stop sounding like an idiot every time she opens her mouth. Just having a savvy social media image isn’t enough to create meaningful progressive legislation.

Member

Did you watch the clip @12Goblins posted? Donald Trump was saying something quite similar back in '99. Attack her ideas because they come from her and you legitimize them once someone's met the qualifiers that you're laid out. This is why gatekeeping and character assassinations never work.

first of all i do not hold trump as the standard here. But given his history he has more knowledge about economics than she does. And this is not the first time she made a stupid statement regarding health care and how to finance it.

Gold Member

All the people pointing at high tax rates for upper income brackets in the 1900s seem to be missing the fact that globalisation has completely changed the game. Back then, the rich couldn’t so easily up and move overseas to more favourable tax conditions.

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All the people pointing at high tax rates for upper income brackets in the 1900s seem to be missing the fact that globalisation has completely changed the game. Back then, the rich couldn’t so easily up and move overseas to more favourable tax conditions.

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That’s crazy. It should be 90%. Like how it was in America when we built our highways, bridges, dams, and put people on the moon. Great things happen when you tax the rich. The hungry get fed. The sick get treated. The country blossoms.

Am I supposed to predict what every other tax jurisdiction is going to do in response to such changes? Or even know what their current conditions are in every case? As one example, Peter Schiff moved to Puerto Rico for tax advantages. Yes, I realise it is a US territory, but it has different tax conditions and is an example of what the rich will do to reduce their tax burden. If the conditions change, they will just find the next best option. It’s naive to believe otherwise.

Gold Member

That’s crazy. It should be 90%. Like how it was in America when we built our highways, bridges, dams, and put people on the moon. Great things happen when you tax the rich. The hungry get fed. The sick get treated. The country blossoms.

Anime waifu panty shots are basically the same thing as paintings of the french baroque masters, if you think about it.

That’s crazy. It should be 90%. Like how it was in America when we built our highways, bridges, dams, and put people on the moon. Great things happen when you tax the rich. The hungry get fed. The sick get treated. The country blossoms.

This is going to fall on deaf ears since you have a Hillary avatar, but I’ll say it anyway.

You kill the economic engine by going after income. I don’t buy trickle down economics, but taking their money before they can spend it isn’t a sound plan. Let them make as much as they want, but incentive actual investment; not stock market and property money churn like we do now. Taxing the shit out of the few thousand people making ridiculous sums of money as income isn’t going to pay a drop in the bucket for any of those things you are dreaming of there. Wealth is the problem. Hording massive sums of money to churn in the market is the problem. Tax the wealthy on their assets. Go read some Piketty.

It isn’t like the government has to worry about national debt anyways; they can just print more money to pay for all of those things you are talking about. There is literally no relationship between what the government can spend and what they bring in as tax revenue. As a bonus, doing all of those things would boost the economy, which in turn would pay back the debt they “created”. Japan has been spending out their ass trying to cause inflation to happen, and they can’t get over 2%. So that isn’t a problem.

Here's how things really work:
1. Congress approves the spending and the money gets spent (S)
2. Government collects some of that money in the form of taxes (T)
3. If 1 > 2, Treasury allows the difference to be swapped for government bonds (B)
In other words, the government spends money and then collects some money back as people pay their taxes and buy bonds. Spending precedes taxing and borrowing – STAB. It takes votes and vocal interest groups, not tax revenue, to start the ball rolling.
If you need proof that STAB is the law of the land, look no further than the Senate's recent $700-billion defense authorization. Without raising a dime from the rest of us, the Senate quietly approved an $80-billion annual increase, or more than enough money to make 4-year public colleges and universities tuition-free. And just where did the government get the money to do that? It authorized it into existence.

Vincit qui se vincit

This is going to fall on deaf ears since you have a Hillary avatar, but I’ll say it anyway.

You kill the economic engine by going after income. I don’t buy trickle down economics, but taking their money before they can spend it isn’t a sound plan. Let them make as much as they want, but incentive actual investment; not stock market and property money churn like we do now. Taxing the shit out of the few thousand people making ridiculous sums of money as income isn’t going to pay a drop in the bucket for any of those things you are dreaming of there. Wealth is the problem. Hording massive sums of money to churn in the market is the problem. Tax the wealthy on their assets. Go read some Piketty.

It isn’t like the government has to worry about national debt anyways; they can just print more money to pay for all of those things you are talking about. There is literally no relationship between what the government can spend and what they bring in as tax revenue. As a bonus, doing all of those things would boost the economy, which in turn would pay back the debt they “created”. Japan has been spending out their ass trying to cause inflation to happen, and they can’t get over 2%. So that isn’t a problem.

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This is going to fall on deaf ears since you have a Hillary avatar, but I’ll say it anyway.

You kill the economic engine by going after income. I don’t buy trickle down economics, but taking their money before they can spend it isn’t a sound plan. Let them make as much as they want, but incentive actual investment; not stock market and property money churn like we do now. Taxing the shit out of the few thousand people making ridiculous sums of money as income isn’t going to pay a drop in the bucket for any of those things you are dreaming of there. Wealth is the problem. Hording massive sums of money to churn in the market is the problem. Tax the wealthy on their assets. Go read some Piketty.

It isn’t like the government has to worry about national debt anyways; they can just print more money to pay for all of those things you are talking about. There is literally no relationship between what the government can spend and what they bring in as tax revenue. As a bonus, doing all of those things would boost the economy, which in turn would pay back the debt they “created”. Japan has been spending out their ass trying to cause inflation to happen, and they can’t get over 2%. So that isn’t a problem.

That 90% figure people like to bring up was also a marginal tax rate but whatever take 9/10ths of someone's earnings and give it to the most inefficient organization you can find I'm sure good things will happen.

Gold Member

That’s crazy. It should be 90%. Like how it was in America when we built our highways, bridges, dams, and put people on the moon. Great things happen when you tax the rich. The hungry get fed. The sick get treated. The country blossoms.

As long as you roll back social programs to where they were during that same period. I don't know where your getting the whole 'sick got treated' stuff. Hardly anyone had insurance, the government wasn't involved in that and soup kitchens were still run by churches.

Even if you were taxing them at 90% and it wasn’t a marginal tax rate there aren’t enough high income people to pay for jack or squat. Don’t conflate income with wealth.

If you are specifically talking about incomes over 10 million we are talking approximate 2000 people. If you could somehow take 100 million from each of those 2000 people; you’d still only generate 200 billion in revenue. And that is frankly impossible since not everyone making 10 million a year has 100 million to pay...

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Unless you close the borders and prepare to seize assets (and end up like Venezuela), this is a dumb thing. Nobody and their wealth would stick around in such an environment. They would just move to a tax haven. It's better to tax many super rich at 15% than to tax 0 super rich at 70%.

Vincit qui se vincit

Even if you were taxing them at 90% and it wasn’t a marginal tax rate there aren’t enough high income people to pay for jack or squat. Don’t conflate income with wealth.

If you are specifically talking about incomes over 10 million we are talking approximate 2000 people. If you could somehow take 100 million from each of those 2000 people; you’d still only generate 200 billion in revenue. And that is frankly impossible since not everyone making 10 million a year has 100 million to pay...

5 billion is a hair over 10% or the federal highway budget of 45 billion. States add in another ~170 billion. Whoopty shit, a few extra miles of road gets paved and maybe another bridge or two will be repaired. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what it is estimated to bring all of our highways and bridges up to snuff as that would be at least 4 or 5 Trillion.

Ok, now what, you took all of these high income prople’s Income for one year and the next year they adjust how (or where) they accumulate wealth so they don’t get taxed so hard. They will just keep on getting richer.

Hit their wealth with a tax. Trump in that video was surprisingly correct, at least according to Picketty’s conclusions in Capital in the Twenty First Century.

Also don’t forget though the other thing I said. The government isn’t constrained by tax revenues on what it can spend. They make the money, and they can just turn the printing presses on if they want to spend it. There is nothing stopping them from spending that 5 trillion on upgrading our bridges, they just lack the political will to do it.

Member

You kill the economic engine by going after income. I don’t buy trickle down economics, but taking their money before they can spend it isn’t a sound plan. Let them make as much as they want, but incentive actual investment; not stock market and property money churn like we do now. Taxing the shit out of the few thousand people making ridiculous sums of money as income isn’t going to pay a drop in the bucket for any of those things you are dreaming of there. Wealth is the problem. Hording massive sums of money to churn in the market is the problem. Tax the wealthy on their assets. Go read some Piketty.

The US economy isn't going to collapse because effective tax rates skyrocket for folks like George Soros and Warren Buffett relative to where it is today. You're right that their taxes don't need to go up to pay for liberal wet dreams. However, it is also true the world won't end if the US goes back to the attitude it had under the golden age of capitalism. The US will grow just fine.

At the end of the day, the US has slashed a lot of taxes, encouraged a lot of tax avoidance, and looked the other way on a lot of fraud without much to show for it. Nothing has been unleashed in America growth-wise. Your life isn't improving at the same rate that it used to and some things have gotten worse.

Why? It's because your leadership's priorities are backwards. The hundreds of millions at the bottom of the totem pole are the ones who drive the economy via their spending decisions. Not the richest. Yet US policies don't reflect that fact.

Giving Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post a tax break isn't going to ever be a game changer.

Anime waifu panty shots are basically the same thing as paintings of the french baroque masters, if you think about it.

The US economy isn't going to collapse because effective tax rates skyrocket for folks like George Soros and Warren Buffett relative to where it is today. You're right that their taxes don't need to go up to pay for liberal wet dreams. However, it is also true the world won't end if the US goes back to the attitude it had under the golden age of capitalism. The US will grow just fine.

At the end of the day, the US has slashed a lot of taxes, encouraged a lot of tax avoidance, and looked the other way on a lot of fraud without much to show for it. Nothing has been unleashed in America growth-wise. Your life isn't improving at the same rate that it used to and some things have gotten worse.

Why? It's because your leadership's priorities are backwards. The hundreds of millions at the bottom of the totem pole are the ones who drive the economy via their spending decisions. Not the richest. Yet US policies don't reflect that fact.

Giving Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post a tax break isn't going to ever be a game changer.

Again you people and your conflating wealth with income. I'm not against going after their wealth. I am against stupid levels of tax on income. Income and wealth are two different things.

Interesting that you bring up Bezos tho. His Amazon salary is only $81,840 a year. If he doesn't sell stock that could be all he has to file. That would put him in the same bracket as me. Buffet's salary is $100k. I would Imagine Soro's stated income is also shockingly low. Just because his portfolio gains in value and his net worth goes up doesn't mean he has had income.

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When those people move out of the country because of high taxes there will be a net loss. Look at people and business fleeing California to places like Texas because of high taxes. The same thing will happen.

That's always going to be a thing if there's other places with lower taxes. It's not like there's a specific point at which all rich people are going to leave the country so outright saying this will happen and will *certainly* be a net loss seems disingenuous unless you've got anything specific to back it up. Just giving in to rich people because you're too scared that they and their money (which they barely get taxed on anyway) seems silly.

Also, the right's hard-on for AOC is pretty funny. Even if she was saying supposedly stupid things all the time so do a fuckton o government officials but nobody seems to give a shit or question their qualifications. Just a short list of retarded shit:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Todd Akin

"Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up,"

Mo Brooks

"How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?"